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A few days later, Lin Ruoyin came to the studio to find Xu Jia and discovered that a new canvas had been placed on the easel.
It was not one of the landscapes or abstract exercises he had been painting, which were full of personal feelings, but a still life with a rigorous composition, bright colors, and a clear theme.
A vase of blooming sunflowers, paired with a classic-style ceramic pot and lining cloth, with the light and shadow handled with extreme precision, even... to the point of being somewhat deliberate.
"This is... a new work?" Lin Ruoyin looked at the painting with some doubt. The technique was impeccable, even more refined than Xu Jia's usual level, but she felt that something was missing.
Xu Jia was facing away from her, mechanically mixing paints on the palette. Hearing her voice, he paused for a moment.
"Hmm," he responded without turning around, "Let's try a new style."
Lin Ruoyin moved closer and examined the painting closely. The painting was too perfect, as perfect as a textbook example, or rather, like those decorative paintings in galleries that cater to popular aesthetics.
A vague unease crept into her heart, and she asked softly, "Why did you suddenly want to draw this?"
Xu Jia remained silent for a long time, so long that Lin Ruoyin thought he wouldn't answer.
He finally put down his palette, turned around, and looked at her. In the dim light of the studio, his eyes were as dark as a shadow.
“Ruoyin,” he said, his voice low, “I don’t want you to suffer with me.”
Lin Ruoyin's heart sank suddenly, sensing something was about to happen, her fingertips turned icy cold.
"You can sacrifice for me, and so can I."
“But this is different,” Lin Ruoyin retorted almost immediately, her voice strained.
"What's different?" he asked rhetorically, his tone eerily calm.
Lin Ruoyin opened her mouth, but couldn't say anything coherent.
Her heart felt heavy, and a strong, instinctive sense of rejection gripped her. She disliked her father's condescending "for your own good," and she couldn't accept Xu Jia's tragic "sacrifice" at this moment.
“I…” Her voice trembled slightly. For the first time, she felt at a loss for words when facing him, and could only rely on her instincts to grasp the core of her fear. “I don’t want you to become a different person because of me. I don’t want you to give up your most precious things. Do you understand?”
Xu Jia's eyes still held that stubborn sentiment: "You can sacrifice for me, and so can I."
Lin Ruoyin: "I just chose a different path. I didn't change my original intention, and I didn't sacrifice anything. You are different. You did the things you used to hate. This is completely different."
Xu Jia fell silent.
He looked at her, at the innocent expectation in her eyes.
His voice was even hoarseer, as if it had been crushed by something. "You stand in a coffee shop for hours, and even when your fingers are burned red, you smile and say it's nothing." Xu Jia frowned tightly, suppressing the throbbing pain in his chest. "In my opinion, that's a greater sacrifice than mine."
The studio was deathly silent. The sky outside the window had completely darkened, and the neon lights of the distant city began to flicker. Those blurry halos of light, shining through the dusty window, barely outlined the silhouettes of the two people facing each other, but could not illuminate the ever-deepening, cold desolation in each other's eyes.
That night, Lin Ruoyin stayed awake almost until dawn.
The pillow was constantly wet.
Xu Jia's stubborn words in the art studio echoed in her mind like a broken record, accompanied by the chilling desolation he had seen at the time. Anger and resentment were gradually replaced by a deeper pain—a suffocating feeling of watching something precious shatter before her eyes, yet being powerless to stop it.
The next day, looking at her swollen, red eyes in the mirror, she repeatedly applied cold water, barely managing to reduce the swelling. During class, the professor's lecture became a muffled background noise, and the pen strokes on her notebook were meaningless lines. Shen Yuqing leaned closer and whispered, "Why are your eyes so swollen? Did you have a fight with Xu Jia?"
"Um, it's nothing." Lin Ruoyin forced a smile that looked more like a grimace, then quickly lowered her head, not wanting to say anything more. Each retelling of those sharp conversations and clashes of values felt like rubbing salt into a wound.
In the afternoon, Lin Ruoyin went to work part-time at the coffee shop as usual.
As she carried two freshly made lattes toward the window seat, she tripped over something and swayed violently.
"Watch out!" a colleague exclaimed.
It was too late. One of the coffee cups flew out of her hand, the brown liquid arcing through the air before landing squarely on the light-colored coat of a woman who was using a laptop.
"Ah—!" the woman exclaimed, standing up abruptly, a large, unsightly stain instantly spreading across her expensive cashmere coat.
"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." Lin Ruoyin hurriedly put down the remaining cups and grabbed a tissue from the table to help wipe the cups, but the other person dodged away in disgust.
"What did you do?!" The woman's voice was shrill and sharp, drawing the attention of everyone in the café.
The manager rushed over upon hearing the commotion and, upon seeing the scene, his face immediately darkened. While apologizing to the customer and promising to reimburse the dry cleaning fee, he pulled Lin Ruoyin behind him, his voice low but unable to conceal his anger: "Lin Ruoyin! What's wrong with you! If you're not focused, don't come to work!"
A barrage of accusations rained down on Lin Ruoyin, a mixture of the pain from last night, the exhaustion of the past few days, and the embarrassment of being in front of everyone. Her ears rang, and her vision blurred. She bit her lower lip hard to keep the tears welling in her eyes from falling, and could only repeatedly apologize sincerely: "I'm sorry, Manager, it's my fault, I'm so sorry..."
She finally made it to the end of the workday. As she stepped out of the coffee shop, a gust of evening wind made her shiver and instinctively hug her arms. Her body was cold, but her heart was even colder and more numb.
Back in her dorm, Shen Yuqing wasn't there. The room was empty, with only the deepening twilight outside the window and the faint sounds of distant noise. After washing her face, she looked at herself in the mirror, dejected, her gaze unconsciously falling on the moonstone necklace Xu Jia had given her.
She reached out and touched the pendant; the cool metal against her palm seemed to still retain the warmth of his body when he made it, and that clumsy yet sincere intention.
"Moonstone can protect your original aspirations. This line is not closed. I hope that your design journey, and... us, will continue to extend forward like this line."
The way he spoke earnestly back then is so vivid in my mind, as if it happened just yesterday.
She suddenly missed Xu Jia terribly and wanted to see him right now.
After the thought of missing her arose, Lin Ruoyin decided to go see the person she wanted to see immediately.
At this time today, he is most likely in his art studio.
Driven by sheer willpower, Lin Ruoyin arrived at the downstairs of the art studio Xu Jia rented. The familiar window was lit.
The door was ajar, not closed properly.
From inside came the slightly hurried sound of paintbrushes rubbing against the canvas, and Xu Jia's suppressed sighs.
As if by some strange twist of fate, Lin Ruoyin did not knock on the door, but instead gently pushed it open a crack.
Xu Jia stood before the easel. A brand-new, sizable canvas lay stretched across it. In the dim light, Lin Ruoyin could make out the painting's content. It was a scene with a clear theme: several simply dressed but resolute-looking workers toiling on the scaffolding of a grand, historically significant building, against a backdrop of hazy morning light and the rising sun. The composition was balanced and stable, the figures' postures dynamic, and the handling of light and shadow exquisite—perfectly fitting the "narrative of the times" and "humanistic concern" themes favored by mainstream art competitions.
This was precisely the direction she had carefully analyzed and suggested to him not long ago, when she was holding his collection of award-winning works, that was the easiest way to win awards.
At this moment, Xu Jia was using a large brush, dipped in an extremely glaring fluorescent orange that clashed sharply with the overall gray-blue tone of the painting, to fiercely smear and layer the "morning light" area in the background. The use of color was abrupt and brutal, destroying the carefully crafted atmosphere and resembling a destruction born of emotional outburst.
His movements were exaggerated, almost like a venting of anger. Paint splattered onto the cuffs of his faded shirt, his jeans stained with old paint, and even a few glaring orange-red spots on the floor, but he was completely unaware.
The light shone from his side and front, illuminating half of his face. Lin Ruoyin could clearly see his tightly furrowed brows, forming a deep "川" shape, his lips pressed into a pale line, and his jawline taut. His eyes were fixed on the area on the canvas that he had "ruined," devoid of any immersion in or passion for creation, only an overwhelming sense of restlessness, struggle, and a kind of... almost physiological disgust.
Each heavy stroke of the paintbrush seemed to lash at his own artistic conscience. His back was taut like a bow stretched to its limit, about to break, every muscle exuding a stiff resistance and a desperate, almost self-destructive ruthlessness.
Looking at the scene before her, Lin Ruoyin almost forgot to breathe.
She slowly, little by little, backed away without making a sound.
Then, she turned around and walked down the stairs, step by step, with immense weight yet extraordinary determination.
The moonstone pendant around my neck felt cool against my skin.
At this moment, the unclosed silver line seemed to foreshadow some kind of ending.
It doesn't extend forward indefinitely.
Instead, they were unable to reach the finish line.
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